Shi'a Muslims and opposition to America in Iraq.

First the quotes from people:

"We want an Islamic state here similar to the Iranian model," said Omran Kadhem, a doctoral student and public affairs officer at Karbala University. "We tried liberalism, Communism and secularism, but none of them worked, so why not try an Islamic state?"

(kaveh: well, I can think of a couple of reasons...)

[Mr Nasseri said:] "I want a Shiite cleric to rule Iraq, whether it be Iraqi or Iranian. I would rather have someone like Mr. Khomeini rule Iraq rather than any secular Iraqi."

Arrrggh! Talk about learning nothing from history! Yet, it is difficult for people to learn from their own mistakes; how much more difficult it is to learn from the mistakes of others.

OK, I have a brilliant idea! We can swap around all those people on Hoder's blog who'd rather be ruled by Americans than mullahs, and people like that in Iraq. Then everyone will be happy! There is a small problem with Arabic, but people on the Iranian side are supposed have learned Arabic in school, right? :-) And people like Mr Nasseri will be so happy to be ruled by mullahs, that they will learn Persian in no time!

If you didn't hear what happened to the 100 students from Amir Kabir University who wrote to Mr Karzai wanting to go and study in Afghanistan, a newspaper in Herat wrote in January that:

"Subsequently, the embassy of Afghanistan in Tehran welcomed this suggestion and hoped the head of the transitional Islamic administration of Afghanistan will accept this suggestion with his kind favour.

There is no doubt that the letter from Iranian students to the head of the Afghan administration had a symbolic aspect and from their point of view it is regarded as a symbol for the dominant political situation of their country."

(from BBC monitoring - Awa-e Naw, Herat, in Dari 21 Jan 03)